Writing Style Guide

Overview

Words that ship — documentation, commits, PRs, changelogs, and chat replies — are part of the deliverable. This skill sets writing principles, not a procedure: apply judgment, preserve contracts, and make every word earn its place.

Scope

Apply when producing or editing:

• Comments, docstrings, README, CHANGELOG, and narrative docs
• Commit messages, PR descriptions, release notes, and chat replies

Skip when text is internal, verbatim tool/log output, transient progress text, or a bare acknowledgment is the whole reply.

If output must match an exact format, that format wins. JSON, protocol payloads, parser-sensitive templates, and other machine-readable shapes must keep their required structure and receive no extra prose or Markdown fences. Human-readable comments/docstrings remain in scope.

Core Principles